New elephant for Brookfield Zoo

August 10, 2009

Brookfield Zoo today welcomed Joyce, a 26-year-old African elephant, who spent her first day in the newly renovated outdoor elephant yard Monday morning.

Standing about 8 feet tall, weighing in at 6,800 pounds, Joyce is a little bit taller than Christy, a 28-year-old elephant at the zoo. Christy lost Affie, her companion of about 25 years, when the elephant died in May at 39 years old.

Kim Smith, the zoo's vice president of animal care, said Christy and Joyce have had "a little bit of contact, not much," since Joyce's arrival last night around 8:30 p.m. Joyce took a 3-day trip from Vallejo, Calif., where she spent five years at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. She travelled with one veterinarian, one trainer from Six Flags and one zoo trainer who had spent time with her at Six Flags, Smith said.

The zoo is being cautious in introducing Christy and Joyce, Smith said.

"Elephants are able to communicate at levels that we cannot hear, so I'm sure there's been some levels of there's a 'new elephant in the house' kind of communication," Smith said. "We haven't allowed a lot of contact because we want to supervise it. We want to make sure this all goes well."

Smith said the key is that the transition will be a "positive experience" and they will supervise the pair's body language during the next couple of weeks to decide when they will officially be introduced.

"You want to make sure again that their first interaction is positive, on neutral ground," she said. "It's just like two kids meeting on the playground. You wouldn't take a new kid to another kid's room and say, 'Okay work it out.' That's not going to work."